Applied Sport Psychology: Enhancing Confidence and Managing Anxiety

This essay delves into the critical roles of self-confidence and anxiety within the realm of applied sport psychology. It begins by highlighting the significance of self-confidence as a key differentiator between successful and less successful athletes, drawing upon Bandura's concept of self-efficacy and Vealey's sport-confidence theory. The essay explores the distinctions between trait and state sports confidence, emphasizing how confidence influences sporting behaviors and outcomes. It then outlines strategies and psychological interventions employed by sports psychologists to enhance self-confidence, such as team cohesion, effective leadership, and mental preparation. Furthermore, the essay addresses anxiety appraisal, exploring the cognitive interpretations of physiological arousal and introducing Jones' model of control to explain anxiety interpretation differences. The discussion also touches upon arousal regulation, emphasizing the importance of maintaining optimal activation levels for peak performance, ultimately providing a comprehensive overview of the psychological factors impacting athletic success.

Running Head: APPLIED SPORT PSYCHOLOGY 1
Applied Sport Psychology
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Building self-confidence
1.
It has been mentioned in the particular segment that self-confidence plays an important role and
also it is one of the most discriminating factors between the less successful and the successful
performances in the world of sports to a great extent.
It has been observed and witnessed that the self-efficacy as stated by Bandura in the year 1977
was the self-efficacy is regarded as the main role for analyzing the changes achieved in avoidant
as well as the fearful behavior in the individuals. Furthermore, the theory was mainly based on
the main assumption that the psychological forms not matter whatever forms they are in serves
as a vital component for strengthening and creating the reasonable amount of expectations with
regards to the personal efficacy. The theory also distinguishes in a successful manner between
the response outcome expectancies and the expectations of efficacy. On the other hand, in the
sport-confidence theory outlined by Valley in the year 1986 suggested that the sports confidence
can be defined as the degree or the belief of certainity that an individual posseses about their
personal ability to be successful in the world of sports. Furthermore, it has been also noticed that
the Sport Confidence Theory mainly measures two factors: State sports confidence and traits
sports confidence. The trait sports confidence is considered to be like the other personality traits
that tend to remain in a stable position. Additionally, the trait confidence is also difference from
the particular confidence as it relates to the generalized belief of a person about the extent to
which their ability may bring a reasonable amount of success across a huge range of sports. It is
one of the reason why the trait confidence is also global. Secondly, the state sports confidence
can also be developed via learning and it tends to be quite changeable and unstable. The state

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confidence is directly related to the belief of an individual with regards to at what extent to
which the sport’s person ability will bring success at a specific moment. It is the main reason
why the state confidence can be regarded as particular to a situation. Throwing light on the
above-mentioned discussion, it can be said that confidence plays the most important role in the
life of a sports person and it is also important for their performance as it has shown to influence
the sporting attainment, behaviours and attitudes. One of the most recent model with regards to
the sports-confidence also retains the original nine sources of confidence and also includes the
three vital elements that is an absolute necessity for an athelete namely the physical training and
skills, cognitive efficiency, and the resilence. Furthermore, the model also proposed that the
overall culture of the sport such as the competition level and the charecteristics of the sports
person such as their gender will greatly influence the types and sources of sports-confidence
used.
The following are some of the strategies and psychological interventions that is used by the
sports psychologists for enhancing the self-confidence of a sports person:
 Firstly, the approval and the praise by some of the significant persons in terms of strong
team cohesion will tend to enhance the self-confidence of the sports person
 Secondly, if there is effective amount of leadership demonstrated by the coach then it will
instantly raise the confidence level at an alarming rate among the team members
 Thirdly, the individuals who lack in the self-confidence must be helped by the sports
psychologists in terms of seeing if their working conditions are suitable enough for them

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 The sports person will also require the mental preparation from their sports psychologists
and physical preparation from their coach so that their confidence will be increased and
they will deliver a success performance
2.
In this segment anxiety appraisal will be briefly highlighted. There are some of the researches
that has suggested cognitively tensed/worried performers clarify their physiological arousal
symptoms in a negative manner, and followed by it they also tend to recognize they are no longer
in control with regards to their performance. Throwing light on the above-mentioned discussion
it can be said that for explaining the anxiety interpretation differences Jones in the year 1995 had
proposed a model of control that was regarded as quite useful for the athlets. Furthermore, this
particular model also tries to explain that the positive expectancy of goal attainment is effect of
the ability to cope and perceived control and this produces a more facilitative interpretation with
regards anxiety. One of the famous basketball coach named Jack Donahue said that “It is not a
case of getting rid of the butterflies; it's a question of getting them to fly in formation .” This
specific idea is also regarded as the stimulus regulation. Furthermore, the arousal regulation also
means entering into and maintaining an excellent level of physiological and cognitive activation
in order to maximize the performance of the sports person.

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